As a previous honey-oak cabinet owner and hater, I say take the risk and go for it! When I moved in my house 2 years ago, i HATED the cabinets, abhored them and tried to paint around the honey color, I painted the walls 3 colors in 6 months. All of it seemed to still scream late 70's honey oak to me. So at least yours isn't as "honey" as mine were. And your DH is on board! So that's the brightside. My boyfriend is one of those that thought no wood should be painted. After collecting white kitchen pics I adored for about 3 months and showing him them EVERY night, he finally gave in. I sanded the entire kitchen myself. We also replaced all our cabinet doors, because I hated the double cathedral look of them, and had a local cabinet maker make us shaker style. We did all the painting ourselves. My boyfriend is great at spraying, and his grandpa was a professional painter for years, so he painted the frames. Had the doors outside painting them and one of our friends backed over 7 of our cabinet doors while they were drying!!! lol So we had to wait 3 more weeks for more cabinet doors. Then after they were painted the paint didn't match. So we have successfully painted our cabinets 2 times. We went with an acrylic base the 2nd go round and I LOVE it! We have a satin on our cabinets, white subway tile backsplash. If you're interested I can post some before and after pics for you! It will be well worth it to paint in the end. We also changed how ours looked. We had a soffit at the top and cut out areas above our doors and put in glass, it's unique now! And cut down an in-wall oven cabinet to make upper/lower, and added crown to all of it. So at least you already have your granite and flooring! We had 70's lineoleum in a yellow/red brick pattern, and honey oak! My wall color is BM louisberg green, with mohave cream granite. We did replace all our appliances one by one over the last year with stainless though, and I like it much better than the white on white. But I love the clean look of a white kitchen! Good luck!

Matching and mixing colors is not an exact science. It is an art form that has been commercialized for the retail market. There is no such thing as a 100% guaranteed perfect color match. What does guaranteed color perfect match mean any way. "Perfect Match" according to what and whom and in what lighting conditions. The way to home sample MOST accurately is to buy a quart of the color in the base and sheen you intend to ultimately put on your walls. Even then, stuff can happen. I talk a lot about expectations. Expectations of color on various levels. What do you expect the wall color to do for you, the room, the design goals, the light, etc. The other part of my expectations discussion is how do you expect that small chip to translate and play out in your 3D room. Sometimes, depending on the feedback given during those discussions, changes are made in color choice, paint brand and even sheen because it becomes apparent that the original paint/paint color choice is not going to sync up well with the now better defined expectations. It can help to know going into the color matching endeavor that you may need to relax your expectations a little because stuff can happen along the way. Starting at getting a decent match to a chip all the way up to the end when the whole room is done, the ceiling is painted and all the contents are put back in the room. Color is a phenomena of nature and there is only so much one can do to control it. In the end, everyone makes their best guess; the homeowner or designer who picked the wall color as well as the guy trying to mix it. How well a Ben Moore store can match those SW colors depends on many factors like how well maintained and calibrated is the equipment to how experienced and skilled at mixing color are the staff. Always have them dry out a sample of what they mix. Take it to a window or outside. If, at that point, it does not meet your expectations, then don't buy it. Nothing says you have to. If they can't mix it to your satisfaction, just leave.

OP, please forgive this OT commentary to answer Julie. You can email me, too, if you click on My Page. Julie, thank you for the compliments. It's taking me so long to finish that no one notices anything I do get done anymore! :o) Anyway, I posted something in the forum below about type of paint. As for painting 'pure white', I wouldn't do bright white, but something on the order of Behr's Swiss Chocolate, which is just a perfect, subtle white that will compliment your granite. I painted cabinets as described on the link below. After drying several days, I then took a small palm hand sander with 220 grit and sanded off the corners, edges, and high profile parts on the doors and other areas of the doors to show wearing away of paint. I then took a small 1" black foam brush and used Minwax stain on all of the exposed newly sanded wood, cleaning off excess stain off the paint and doors in about five minutes. You will have to choose a stain to compliment your granite and wood floors. This can be a messy process, so by a couple of boxes of disposable medical gloves. This is the best, easiest way to keep a messy job 'clean'. Especially if you work in the house like I do. Once stained, let it dry a day. Then I mixed the glaze as I described on the web address in this paragraph, except I painted it around all of the edges of the door profile to accent and define the interior areas. (I mixed up about a pint of glaze at a time.) I wanted a more dramatic look to my doors, so I left a lot more product on my doors that the average pro painter. Use a 2.5" sash brush by Wooster. I love Purdy brushes, but for this job, only the Wooster works the best. I know, I tried them all. http://www.sherichase.com/progress/July2008Update.htm . After the glaze, I also did another technique to the doors using an oak colored stain on the raised, thickest part of the door to give it a more golden, rustic look. I have a similar pattern in my kitchen table, except it has a light grey glaze. I did dry-dragging of a large brush across the front face of the doors with the light oak stain. It's subtle, but gives dimension and character when you're up close. I can take a better photo if you like. Let this dry a day. Then I waxed the doors with clear Briwax. Ut takes about five minutes per door or so. Here's where I made a bit of a 'mistake'. I waxed with light brown, but I think it was a bit too yellow, so I'm removing some of it now. Half of the kitchen is waxed with clear, the other half I'm having to really work to get the wax off without messing up my paint job. So even on my photo above, you can see the uppers have brown wax and lowers have clear wax. It's all subtle. Well, I do have some of the brown wax off the upper in that photo. It's going to take some time and I have a lot to do right now. As always, wet sand BY HAND between every coat of anything you put on your doors: paint, glaze, etc. Just make sure the product has cured before you sand. Wet sanding is the best. I gradually work up to 600 grit. I am still working on my doors now and am not pass 320 grit, I believe. I still have to get off that brown wax. It's not coming off like I think it should with the clear wax. That being said, my kitchen photos show myriads of stages and mistakes. You can see my progress at: www.sherichase.com/progress to see where I started and am today. Email me and I'll give you my ph.# in case you need to call. FYI: Only use a hand palm sander to remove wood and paint. Do not 'wet sand' with any electrice machine. All wet sanding is done by hand. Light pressure with the grain, wetting the door with a fine mist spray bottle then wiping off excess with a microfiber cloth. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful: Painting cabinets

Well, contractors of any kind may insist on using their favorite products because they have tried them all already and know which are the true winners. Also, what if he switches products and there is some kind of learning curve involved? It's true that every paint manufacturer makes a paint appropriate for use on cabinets, but that doesn't mean they are all good. As for painting one room all the same color, the walls are not going to match the cabinets no matter what because of lighting and shadows and because one surface is cabinet and one surface is wall. If the color match isn't quite perfect, it's not going to matter. As for color matching in general, it's somewhat of an inexact science, but for most customers, close is good enough. You should be able to ask to approve the color match before proceeding with the work though. In fact, if I run into a customer that I can sniff out is going to be particular about the exactness of the color match, I will make them sign off on the match before painting anything.